Impact of War on the Family

The protracted Civil War has made the task of conducting empirical
research on marriage habits almost impossible. Available statistics
indicate that familial and marital habits differ among sects. Christian
families tend to be smaller than Muslim- -particularly Shia--families.
According to a 1970 survey, the average Lebanese Christian family
excluding Maronites had 3.57 children, the Sunni 4.38, and the Shia
5.01. A striking aspect of marriage habits in Lebanon, especially after
1975, was the impact of recession on marriage. The high cost of living
and housing and the difficulty in finding employment caused men to marry
later. In the past, Lebanese men and women married at an early age, but
in the 1980s in Beirut the average age for marriage was 31 years for men
and 22.5 for women. Economic difficulties also forced more families to
resort to birth control, so that the size of the average Lebanese family
has declined appreciably.

A study conducted in 1983 indicated, however, that marriage was
common among the population of Greater Beirut, with only 10 percent or
fewer of the population remaining single at ages above forty. The
majority of females at age twenty-five or older were married; a majority
of males at age thirty or older were also married. Moreover, very few
adult males or females were separated or divorced. The percentage of
widows forty years of age and less was considerably higher than that for
males of the same age. Marriages based on personal choices of the
spouses as opposed to familyarranged marriages increased with the
gradual elimination of traditional boundaries between the sexes.
However, family-arranged marriages continued to be practiced across
geographical and social boundaries. They were preferred among the
economic elite of the cities as a means of preserving wealth and status
within the same extended family, or within the same social group.

One study conducted in the early 1980s on the impact of the war on
family structure concluded that there was a clear decline in divorce.
This probably occurred because of the huge costs involved: payment of
deferred dowry, alimony for children, and support of the woman during
the prescribed period during which she may not remarry.